From not-quite-Yorkshire;
I come from the borders.
From shadowy gardens and crowds of
hydrangeas,
from hand-outs from neighbours;
motherless summers of sun and bare
feet.
From free school dinners, a house
full of lodgers,
too many sisters, too many brothers,
too many rooms to heat,
from spiders in corners and rats in
the cellar.
Cobbles and grit and backstreet.
I come too clever for my own good
from spare the rod; from fear
of God,
from unquestioning faith in nuns
and ghosts and all authority and
Dad.
I come from the silence of fog
on far-off fields; from farm and bog
and crops gone bad,
from priests and Sunday’s boredom.
I come from the butter mountain
and the steady drip of fruit in bags
over buckets of stewing wine
and I come from the moors, as angry
as flame; from the hills
with the wings I was handed;
from the blank, blank page
of the rain. From Look and Learn,
I come from a dream, I come from
stone.
I come from never did me any harm
and I too come from one bad man.
From silence. But not my own.
Clare Shaw
Clare Shaw was our creative writing tutor for WoW's What's Your Story? course with the Liverpool Mental Health Consortium. Clare has inspired the group to carry on working on their writing and performing as a group as the Rainbow Writers.
We hope these pieces have inspired you to write your own. We look forward to seeing you on World Mental Health Day, 10th October, at the Central Library for our celebration event where a screening of Ruby Wax will be aired announcing the winners!
